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com/ on June 10, 2023 by guest. Protected by
Open access
To cite: Ganly M, McMahon JM.
New generation of headgear
for rugby: impact reduction of
linear and rotational forces by
a viscoelastic material-based
rugby head guard. BMJ Open
Sport & Exercise Medicine
2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/
bmjsem-2018-000464
Accepted 14 November 2018
© Author(s) (or their
employer(s)) 2018. Re-use
permitted under CC BY-NC. No
commercial re-use. See rights
and permissions. Published by
BMJ.
1
Contego Sports Ltd., Unit
1 Oranmore Business park,
Oranmore, Co., Galway, Ireland
2 player hours by the England Professional
Galway Neuroscience Group,
National University of Ireland
Galway, Galway, Ireland
Correspondence to
Dr Jill Mary McMahon; ​jill.​
mcmahon@​nuigalway.​ie
Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464
New generation of headgear for rugby:
impact reduction of linear and
rotational forces by a viscoelastic
material-based rugby head guard
Mark Ganly,1 Jill Mary McMahon1,2
Abstract
Objectives In the aim to develop a usable and wearable
head guard for rugby that could reduce impact energy and
lessen the likelihood of concussive and subconcussive
injury during play, a combination of viscoelastic materials
was employed to develop a guard with similar dimensions
to those currently used in international rugby.
Methods The head guard was tested for impact energy
reduction following linear acceleration, using drop tests,
as required by World Rugby. The head guard was also
subjected to pendulum tests, allowing acceleration to
be simultaneously measured on two headforms, as well
as repeated impacts to mimic ageing and repeated use.
Impact following rotational acceleration was determined at
two impact locations and at three impact velocities.
Results The viscoelastic head guard (N-Pro) was shown
to reduce linear impacts by up to 75% in comparison to
the use of a commercially available rugby head guard and
repeated impacts did not impair the attenuation of impact
energy. Rotational impact energy was also reduced by
an average of 34% across three speeds and two sites of
impact test sites, in comparison to tested bare headforms.
Conclusions This heralds a new generation of soft-
shelled headgear that could help reduce two primary risk
factors in sports-induced mild traumatic brain injury: linear
and rotational impacts to the head.
Introduction
There has been much focus on the phenom-
enon of sports-related mild traumatic brain
injury (mTBI), with growing fears that
prolonged exposure to head impacts in sports
may lead to long-term cognitive, behavioural
and neuropathological effects. In rugby
union, concussive hits have been rising in
incidence (figure 1)1–5 and were shown to
occur at a rate of 20.1 concussions per 1000
Rugby Injury surveillance project in the
2016–2017 season4 and players are known to
be exposed to numerous subconcussive hits
throughout their careers.6 This has prompted
calls for action by international sports bodies,
such as World Rugby, to address a growing
Original article
What are the new findings?
►► Bench testing of the new viscoelastic rugby head
guard has shown that it can significantly reduce
both linear and rotational impact energy.
►► It performs better at reducing impact than the oth-
er commercially available scrum caps tested, using
test methodology developed by World Rugby.
How might it impact on clinical practice in the
near future?
►► Use of these N-Pro head guards could potentially
help reduce the severity of traumatic brain injuries
copyright.
sustained during play in contact sports such as rug-
by by reducing the force from linear and rotational
accelerations.
need for education and prevention strategies
in ensuring that risk from head injury can be
at a minimum.
Concussive and subconcussive injuries,
both of which fall into the mTBI spectrum
as defined by the Glasgow Coma Scale, arise
from blows to the head, or neck, resulting
in deformation and movement of the brain
tissue within the skull. Such blows can result
in a plethora of somatic, emotional and
cognitive symptoms such as (but not neces-
sarily including) loss-of-consciousness, visual
disturbances, balance difficulties, dizziness,
memory loss, difficulty in concentration, irri-
tability and confusion, often in the absence of
any evident structural abnormality using stan-
dard neuroimaging techniques. While there is
huge interindividual response in the severity
and number of symptoms experienced, it
is evident that, if the impact energy to the
head can be lessened, the resulting so-called
neurometabolic cascade ,7 which has both short-
term and long-term damaging effects, can
be reduced. This is particularly important
in sports where players are subjected to
1
 BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med: first published as 10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464 on 7 December 2018. Downloaded from http://bmjopensem.bmj.com/ on June 10, 2023 by guest. Protected by
Open access

constitutes an acceptable level of impact attenuation by

Figure 1 Increase of concussion incidence in English
professional rugby between 2010 and 2017.
repetitive trauma over a sports season or, in some cases, a
lifetime. A paper by King et al has estimated the number
of impacts to be 77 per player per match in amateur
rugby union8 suggesting that mild brain trauma may be
occurring even in the absence of concussion symptoms,
and this can have very serious long-term health conse-
quences.9
The issue of headgear use in contact sports has always
been a divisive one, with little compelling evidence that
hard-shelled helmets, traditionally used in ice hockey
sports headgear.Table 1 illustrates the different impact
attenuation values required by ASTM International for
different sports and leisure activities. (In the absence of
an ASTM standard for rugby, the regulations from World
Rugby regarding player’s clothing, are included as a
comparator.)
However, advances in polymer technology have meant
that soft foam based rugby headgear, capable of reducing
impact energy, can be developed. Viscoelastic polymers,
as implied by the name, have both viscous and elastic
properties when undergoing deformation and are used
worldwide for the purposes of shock absorption and vibra-
tion reduction.11 The proprietary material, Defentex,
from which a new type of head guard (the N-Pro) has
been made, contains layers of viscoelastic polymers
that have been shown to absorb impact in the absence
of a hard outer shell, unlike other sports ‘helmets’. It is
composed of interspersed soft elastic segments, which
absorb energy, and harder segments which confer hard-
ness and rigidity and help to retain the form of the
material.
It is critical to assess whether this headgear, designed
specifically for use in rugby, actually has the ability to
absorb impact energy and, in doing so, reduce the
forces being transferred to the brain tissue during play.
A series of linear impact tests was carried out on the

and American football, have any protective effect against
mTBI and may even exacerbate the neuropathological
damage.10 Similarly, the soft-shelled foam-based head
guards, used in rugby, have not shown any protective
effect against mTBI and serve mostly to protect against
cuts and abrasions. What further confounds the matter
is that there is no agreement, across different standards
agencies and international sporting bodies, about what
copyright.
N-Pro head guard and the results compared with those
from two of the most popular head guards, of the 210
styles currently having the World Rugby approval mark
(http://​playerwelfare.​worldrugby.​org/?​documentid=​
52). The head guard was also tested for its ability to
attenuate impact when subjected to rotational acceler-
ations.

Table 1 Test standards for peak acceleration of impact in protective headgear

Sport or leisure activity Peak acceleration (g max) Body Reference

American Football Must not exceed 300g ASTM F717-10

Horse sports/horseback riding Must not exceed 300g ASTM F1163-15
Cycling & roller-skating Must not exceed 300g ASTM F1447-12-
Skateboarding/trick roller-skating Must not exceed 300g ASTM F1492-08(2015)
Speed skating Must not exceed 300g ASTM F1849-07(2012)
Downhill mountain bike racing Must not exceed 300g ASTM F1951-15
Recreational snow sports Must not exceed 300g ASTM F2040-11
BMX biking Must not exceed 300g ASTM F2032-15
Soccer Must not exceed 300g ASTM F2439-06 (2016)
Martial arts Must not exceed 80g ASTM
 Falling Must not exceed 300g ASTM F2397-09
 Low energy striking impact Must not exceed 50g ASTM F2397-09
 High energy striking impact Must not exceed 150g ASTM F2397-09
Rugby Must be greater than 200g WR Regulation 12
ASTM International, American Society for Testing & Materials; WR, World Rugby.

2 Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464

Test battery 1
Effects of reducing linear impacts were tested by Anecto
Ltd an independent ISO 17025 Accredited Test Labora-
tory based in Galway, Ireland. This company was chosen
after comparing the test modalities used by a number
of companies who carry out impact testing of headgear.
Anecto Ltd employ a sampling frequency of 1MHz.
Anecto carried out both drop and pendulum tests. All
testing was carried out on headforms with the N-Pro,
and bare headforms were used as controls. Testing was
also carried out on two of the best-selling rugby head
guards, hereafter referred to as CA#1 (commercial-
ly-available #1) and CA#2 (commercially-available #2).
Drop tests
All drop tests were carried out in accordance with
World Rugby Regulation 12, Schedule 1, Section 4.3
https://www.​worldrugby.​org/​handbook/​regulations/​
reg-​12/​schedule-​1?​lang=​en (figure 2A), with measure-
ments taken from ‘crown’, ‘temple’ and ‘forehead’
(figure 2B) of the head guard.
All headforms used were compliant with EN960. For
the crown area, a single drop measurement was made,
but for temple and forehead sites, max g force was
measured at two sites (figure 2B) and the average value
reported. For all drops, the following parameters were
used:
Energy level=13.8 J, Drop=300 mm, Head mass=4.7
kg. All recorded values are the mean of resolved g
values from three successive drops (with all drops lying
within ±10 g of the mean value).
Pendulum tests
Pendulum tests were carried out using equipment
customised by Contego sports to allow two headforms
(size J compliant with EN960) to be tested. This allowed
measurement of peak linear acceleration (PLA) in
two different scenarios: (1) one headform stationary
and one moving and (2) both headforms moving
(figure 2C). Each test was carried out six times and the
average value determined.
Repeated impact tests
In order to simulate ageing of the headgear and to
address the problem of players being subjected to a
large number of concussive and subconcussive hits, the
N-Pro was subjected to repeated pendulum impacts,
using the customised apparatus shown in figure 2B
(iii), at an acceleration of 20 g, to simulate 1, 2 and 3
years of use. In total, the N-Pro received 1920 impacts.
Test battery 2
Since it is known that many of the neuropathological
changes in the brain, resulting from concussive and
subconcussive impacts, are due to rotational forces,12
it was deemed necessary to test the ability of the head
guard to reduce impacts when subjected to rotational
acceleration. This testing was carried out by the Depart-
ment of Biomedical Engineering & Mechanics, Virginia
Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464
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Open access
Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Twenty-four impact
tests were carried out using a custom head-to-head
impactor.13
The headgear was tested on NOCSAE headforms
mounted on Hybrid III necks, instrumented with linear
acceleration and angular rate sensors. Two impact
locations, representing most common head-to-head
impacts, were tested using three impact velocities,
representing a range of impact severities from low to
high risk. Bare head-to-head tests were carried out as a
control range. All tests were carried out twice.
Statistical tests
Statistical analysis was carried out on PLA for the
three head guards at five sites using a two-way ANOVA
for balanced data. Interval estimates for the pairwise
difference between head guards (using Tukey Honest
Significant Differences). Comparison of results in the
pendulum testing was carried out using Student’s t-test.
Results
Test battery 1a—drop tests
Drop tests showed that the N-Pro is better at attenuating
impact than CA#1 and CA#2 with peak acceleration
being reduced to below 200 g in all areas of the head-
gear tested (figure 3A). In the crown drop test, the
N-Pro resulted in 67% and 72% reductions in impact
acceleration in comparison to CA#1 and CA#2, respec-
copyright.
tively. In the temple drop test, the average impact
reduction was 35% compared with CA#1 and 55%
compared with CA#2. In the forehead drop test, only
the N-Pro attenuated impact acceleration to a large
degree, with both hits resulting in a measured g max
of approximately 100 g. This contrasted with the other
head guards tested whose measured PLAs were all 300 g
or greater, indicating only minimal impact protection.
The N-Pro resulted in a reduction in impact accelera-
tion of 71% and 76% in comparison to CA#1 and CA#2,
respectively. Statistical testing showed the N-Pro had
a significantly lower mean PLA compared with CA#1
and CA#2 (p=0.02 and p=0.002, respectively) with no
evidence of a difference, on average, between CA1 and
CA2 (p=0.16). It is noted that impact reduction perfor-
mance varied across all testing sites, for all headgear,
with the N-Pro demonstrating the smallest variation.
Test battery 1b—pendulum tests
To measure the effect of impact on the wearer of the
headgear and in another player, should a head-to-
head impact occur during play, a customised impactor
was made by Anecto according to specifications by
Contego Sports Ltd. No significant difference was
seen in PLA measurements from when one headform
was moving (1HFM) and when both headforms were
moving (2HFM) (data not shown) or between PLA
values measured on headform 1 (HF1) and those on
headform 2 (HF2) (data not shown). Pendulum testing
demonstrated that the presence of the N-Pro on one
3
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Open access

copyright.
Figure 2 (A) Customised equipment used for drop tests: Headforms (4.7 kg), either without protection or with a head guard
were dropped a distance of 300 mm and PLA measured using a triaxial accelerometer. (B) sites on head guard where max
g force is measured (i) front view of head guard showing forehead, temple and crown sites (ii) side view showing temple
(iii) Customised pendulum testing equipment for carrying out the repeated impact testing. (C) Customised pendulum
testing equipment where impact testing on two headforms can be carried out simultaneously. This allows testing of impact
attenuation with (i) one stationary head and one moving head and (ii) two moving heads. (D) Cr=Crown drop measurement
site; F1=Forehead drop measurement site #1; F2=Forehead drop measurement site #2; T1=Temple drop measurement site #1;
T2=Temple drop measurement site #2. PLA, peak linear acceleration.

headform resulted in reductions in PLAs measured on
both headforms. The measured impacts were lower in
this scenario than when both headforms were bare or
one headform was protected by CA#1 (figure 3B).
Similarly, the use of at least one N-Prohead guard
reduced impact in both headforms, irrespective of
whether the other headform was unprotected or
protected by CA#1. CA#1 on one headform, with
the second headform unprotected, did not show this
degree of impact attenuation (figure 3B).
Test battery 1c—repeated impact tests
Crown drop tests on the N-Pro (figure 3C), to simu-
late ageing of the head-guard showed that there was no

4 Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464
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Figure 3 (A) Average measured max g force following drop tests on forehead, temple and crown sites of head-forms with copyright.
N-Pro, CA#1 and CA#2. (CA#1 and CA#2=commercially available head guard 1 and commercially-available head guard 2,
respectively). (B) Average measured max g force in pendulum tests with two headforms. (C) average measured max g force
prior to testing and after 640, 1280 and 1920 impacts to the N-Pro head guard, respectively. NHG, no head guard.

change in measured PLA values after 640, 1280 and 1920
repeated impacts, respectively.
Test battery 2—rotational acceleration tests
At two of the impact velocities tested, and in both head
locations, N-Pro was shown to reduce the impact due to
rotational accelerations in comparison to bare heads.
Impact reductions of 35% and 58%, after rear and side
impacts respectively, were achieved at a velocity of 7.2
km/hour, and at 10.8 km/hour rear and side impacts
were reduced by 23% and 39% (figure 4).
Discussion
The phenomenon of sports-related head injury has
received increasing attention in the last two decades,
highlighted by the recent publication of the consensus
statement from the 5th International Consensus Confer-
ence on Concussion in Sport in Berlin,14 concerning
detection, diagnosis, management, risk reduction,
recovery time, treatments and long-term effects of
concussion associated with sport. The issues are particu-
larly relevant to rugby union where there is a rise in the

Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464 5
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copyright.

Figure 4 Measured rotational acceleration (rad/s/s) at rear and side of headforms at three different test velocities. values
shown are for bare headforms and headforms with N-Pro.

number of reported concussions1–5 and where concussion
rates among youth players have been reported as being
the highest among a number of contact sports including
ice hockey, lacrosse and American football.15
The issue of protective headgear use in rugby has always
been a contentious one, with many reports claiming that
existing head protection does little more than prevent
cuts and abrasions.16–18 However, several studies have
shown that players who wear head guards suffer fewer
head injuries16 and given that the structural and cellular
damage resulting from head-impact is directly propor-
tional to the peak acceleration reaching the head, it
would seem logical to use headgear that could dissipate
impact forces.
In this study, we have investigated the impact attenu-
ation properties of a new viscoelastic foam rugby head
guard (N-Pro, Contego Sports) in terms both of applied
linear and rotational forces. Initial testing, using the
standard drop test (as required by World Rugby Regula-
tion 12) showed that the N-Pro was capable of reducing

6 Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464

PLA at all three sites on the head guard and performing
significantly better CA#1 and CA#2. It is of note that the
large variation in performance in this particular regula-
tory test, across testing sites (which was smallest in the
N-Pro), may indicate that further and more rigorous
testing regimes are introduced by world sporting bodies.
Moreover, in a specially designed two-headform test, to
determine impact attenuation effects both for the N-Pro
wearer and the person with whom they come in contact,
the N-Pro was found to reduce the measured max g force
entering both the headforms, irrespective of whether the
other headform was bare, covered with CA#1 headgear
or covered with another N-Pro head guard. The recorded
PLAs were the same in both ‘one head moving’ and ‘two
heads moving’ scenarios. Such results show the efficacy of
the equipment at attenuation of impact and the inherent
safety of the head guard in that impact absorption does
not lead to changes in its physical properties that could
result in injury of another player.
Of additional interest is the fact that, in this set of tests,
all measured impacts on set-ups using the N-Pro were less
than 20 g whereas tests on CA#1 resulted in measured g
values ranging from 95 to 110. In effect, the use of the
head guard has reduced the impact from ‘moderate’
(66–106 g) to ‘mild’.8 Also of interest is that fact that,
when using two N-Pro head guards the measured PLAs
were less than 10 g which is the actual cut-off point for
some player-worn accelerometers, below which accelera-
tion the impact is not registered.8
Repeated impact tests on the head guard, to determine
performance of the headgear over time, were also rele-
vant, given that the number of impacts to which a player
is exposed, whether resulting in concussion or not (ie,
subconcussive blows) has been correlated to develop-
ment of chronic health problems such as depression,
cognitive impairment and chronic traumatic encepha-
lopathy.9 19 Furthermore, King’s research group, using
instrumented mouthguard acceleration measurements
on amateur rugby union players, estimated the number
of >10 g impacts to the head, per player position per
match to be 77.8 Although in vivo testing of wearable
sensors have shown that they may overestimate impact
values, and that there is difficulty in determining the
exact number of impacts during play, the ability of the
N-Pro head guard to reduce PLA after 1920 impacts,
shows its long-term performance to be markedly better
than other commercially available head guards whose
impact attenuation properties were shown to be reduced
up to 50% by repeated impacts.17
While most standards testing bodies and international
sports organisations have rules regarding allowable
PLAs, there is mounting evidence that it is the rotational
(angular) forces resulting from oblique or glancing
head blows12 that lead to the deformational brain move-
ments thought to result in the plethora of cellular effects
that lead to chronic disease.20–24 Using well established
techniques for measuring rotational acceleration13 the
N-Pro was shown to reduce impact by an average of 34%,
Ganly M, McMahon JM. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med 2018;4:e000464. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464
BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med: first published as 10.1136/bmjsem-2018-000464 on 7 December 2018. Downloaded from http://bmjopensem.bmj.com/ on June 10, 2023 by guest. Protected by
Open access
across three impact speeds and two impact sites (range:
19%–58% 95th percentile 39%) compared with bare
headforms.
The ability of the N-Pro to attenuate both linear and
rotational accelerations marks a new departure for the
use of soft-shelled headgear in impact sports such as
rugby. While previous publications have either refuted
the benefit of foam-based head guards or determined
that the headgear would have to be of a thickness
beyond what would be acceptable on the field (McCrory
et al), impact testing of the N-Pro clearly demonstrates
that novel use of a proprietary formulation using visco-
elastic materials may help in reducing dangerous linear
and rotational forces that are experienced on the field.
Indeed, testing of the N-Pro foam on a rodent model of
mTBI has shown that it can prevent impact-associated
behavioural and blood biomarker changes.25 While it is
evident that there is much still to be learnt about mTBI
and how repeated impacts can have long-term patho-
logical sequelae, the known linear relationship between
impact force and injury provides one rationale by which
injury can be minimised. Nothing can provide 100%
protection against sports-related head injuries but the
development of a head guard with such excellent impact
attenuation properties provides great hope, at least, for
development of equipment that could reduce head-in-
jury risk in a hugely popular game.
copyright.
Acknowledgements We wish to acknowledge the Department of Mathematics at
the National University of Ireland Galway for advice on statistical testing.
Contributors The design of all experimental testing was carried out by MG. The
results were analysed and the manuscript prepared principally by JMcM but with
contribution from MG.
Funding All funding from this study was provided by Contego Sports Ltd.
Competing interests Dr JMcM has previously been employed by Contego Sports
Ltd.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Open access This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the
Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which
permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially,
and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is
properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the
use is non-commercial. See: http://​creativecommons.​org/​licenses/​by-​nc/​4.​0/
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